Employee Ownership Blog

Corey Rosen

Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund CEO Says Employee Ownership Belongs on Every Board's Agenda

Norway's main sovereign wealth fund is the Government Pension Fund Global. The fund is managed by Norges Bank Investment Management, whose CEO Nicolai Tangen recently wrote on LinkedIn that “As evidence for employee share ownership continues to grow, companies face a choice. They can concentrate ownership narrowly, or they can use employee ownership as a strategic tool to improve returns and build more resilient companies. The financial case for the latter is compelling. This should be on every board’s agenda.” Tangen states that the fund has consistently voted its shares in favor of proposals for employee ownership plans. 

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Corey Rosen

New Report on Business Owner Perspectives on Selling to Employees

A new report by Adria Scharf and Matt Mazewski of Rutgers and Oyindamola Ijewere of Wilmington University, Business Owner Perspectives on Selling to Employees: Insights from In-Depth Interviews (PDF), chronicles 24 stories of why business owners decided to sell to an employee ownership plan. While most sold to an ESOP, there are also examples of sales to worker cooperatives and employee ownership trusts. The 46-page report also describes how these plans work. 

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Corey Rosen

New DOL Guidance Suggests Lighter Hand on ESOP Litigation

On April 14, the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) in the Department of Labor (DOL) laid out its new enforcement priorities in Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01. The memo states that these priorities will be:

  • Focusing enforcement on the most egregious conduct and significant harm;
  • Ensuring, whenever possible and consistent with the EBSA's mission, that the EBSA does not regulate by enforcement and instead promotes fairness, prior notice, and clarity to the regulated community;
  • Requiring proper review by senior agency officials of all critical enforcement initiatives; and
  • Committing to timely and responsive enforcement.

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NCEO Events & Webinars

From Ownership Structure to Ownership Mindset: Lessons from HFA Enterprises

When HFA Enterprises converted to 100% employee ownership on Halloween 2022, it committed to a fundamentally different way of governing and running a company. In a recent NCEO webinar, Ryan Ray and Dave Wilgus of HFA joined NCEO board member and moderator Howard Kaplan to share what they've learned. Their story offers a practical look at what it takes to build governance that actually serves employee-owners.

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NCEO Events & Webinars

What New ESOPs Need to Prepare For in Year One

Closing an ESOP transaction is a significant milestone, but it also begins a new set of obligations. In a recent NCEO webinar, Beyond the Close: What New ESOPs Need to Prepare for in Their First 90 Days, 6 Months, and One Year, Ken Sommers of PCE Investment Bankers walked through the practical realities that newly formed ESOPs face as they move from transaction to ongoing operation.

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Corey Rosen

Employee Ownership Stands Out in Great Place to Work's 100 Best Companies

The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® 2026 list compiled by the Great Place to Work Institute once again contains a number of companies that either have ESOPs or are directly 100% owned by most of their employees. One is 100% ESOP-owned, one is a 100% employee-owned mix of an ESOP and a stock purchase plan, three have minority ESOPs, and three are owned by stock purchase or partnership plans in which most employees participate.

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Corey Rosen

Judge Rules Releveraging an ESOP Is Not a Fiduciary Violation

Many mature ESOP companies use releveraging to help manage their repurchase obligations and ensure there are shares to allocate to new participants over time. Releveraging especially helps manage repurchase costs when the company’s share price increases quickly. In releveraging, ESOP companies borrow money to purchase shares, typically from former employees, and then allocate those shares over the life of the loan. This new debt can have a temporary impact on share value. Part of that impact is offset by the additional shares allocated to existing participants, but many companies create a floor price plan that protects at least more senior employees from a reduction in their stock value as a result of the additional debt.

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Maria Lianos

Why Your ESOP's Capital Plan Matters More Than You Think

In an NCEO webinar earlier this year, Capital Planning: Beyond the Basics, Prairie Capital Advisors' Nick Viner and Joseph Labetti walked through a framework for thinking about capital allocation in ESOP-owned companies. The session focused on a question that deserves more attention than it often receives: what is actually driving your company's stock price, and are you making intentional decisions about it? 

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